SOUTHEEN APPALACniAN REGION. 



65 



bottom, merely starting them with the canthook. A 16- 

 foot log, 3 feet or more in diameter, can gain momentum 

 enough in this way to smash even fair-sized trees in its 

 path, and when it passes through dense young growth it 

 leaves a track like that of a miniature tornado. The prac- 

 tice is in line with others to be observed in the Southern 

 Appalachians, such as the common habit, for example, of 

 leaving to rot the ''deadened" trees which stand over 

 clearings. There are cases in which these clearings have 

 been inclosed with fences built of rails split from prime 

 black walnut, with no other excuse than that the walnut 

 happened to be within easier reach than either oak or 

 pine. 



Under such methods, in which there is not only an abso- 

 lute lack of provision for a future crop but often a marked 

 absence of that forethought, skill, and aversion to waste 

 which go to make clean lumbering, most of the logged- 

 over areas in the southern Appalachians are only saved 

 from entire destruction of the standing trees by the gen- 

 erally scattered distribution of the merchantable timber. 



OBJECTS AND POLICY OF FOREST MANAGEMENT 

 UNDER GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP. 



In the application of conservative forest management 

 to that portion of the forests of the Southern Appalachi- 

 ans included within the proposed reserve, the first aim 

 should be to protect them from fire. The safety of the 

 forest from fire must form the foundation of any system 

 of practical forestry which is to be permanently success- 

 ful. Fire has done and continues to do enormous damage 

 in this region. The chief cause lies not in malice or in 

 carelessness of campers or of lumbermen, but in the 

 ancient local practice of burning over the forest in the 

 autumn, under the belief that better pasturage is thus 

 obtained the following year. 



The fires are started by the settlers upon the area which Protection 



against forest 



is to serve as a sheep or cattle range the following season, fires, 

 and are permitted to burn unchecked. The result is that, 

 except where confined by roads, streams, or clearings, 

 they often spread from the wood lots of the foothills, in 

 which they are set, to the forests of the higher mountains, 

 there to burn unmolested until rain, snow, or lack of 

 inflammable material puts them out. 



S. Doc, 84 5 



